Maintaining technological advantages over an opponent is often a critical factor for success both in the business world and on the battlefield. These advantages become difficult to maintain once the opponent gains access to the technology. For example, a business competitor may obtain an early version of a new product to examine it in order to identify its key features and functionality. Similarly, a military vehicle or weapon may be lost into enemy hands. The enemy can then examine the electrical components in an effort to understand features and functionality of the vehicle or weapon in order to devise technology to defeat the vehicle or weapon in the future.
Custom made devices are often the most difficult to analyze. However, increasing demands to reduce both development time and overall costs have led to an increased reliance on off-the-shelf components to implement devices. The use of off-the-shelf components gives an opponent a head start at examining the device since the features and functionality of the individual components are easily obtained. Additionally, conventional techniques for arranging the components within a device often facilitate visual identification of both the individual components and many of the connections between the components.
Accordingly, a need exists to develop anti-tamper technology that inhibits the ability of an opponent to examine and/or reverse engineer sensitive devices to learn key features and functionality. This need has been increased due to a directive issued by the United States government that critical designs in military applications must be tamper proof.